In his first week in office, U.S. President Donald Trump set about fulfilling his campaign pledge to dramatically overhaul the federal government, firing government workers focused on increasing diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, slashing climate change mitigation and refugee assistance programs, and suspending foreign aid. Even the Defense Department has not been spared, with the White House asking the various branches of the armed services to make their own proposals for cuts, as it has done for other federal agencies.
According to a memo obtained by the Washington Post and signed by the U.S. Army’s director of staff, Lt. Gen. Laura A. Potter, one of those proposed cuts would be the Pentagon’s newly established Civilian Protection Center of Excellence focused on civilian harm mitigation and response. Founded in 2022, the center’s mission is to “serve as the focal point for matters related to civilian casualties and other forms of civilian harm resulting from military operations involving the United States Armed Forces; and institutionalize and advance knowledge, practices, and tools for preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm.”
While the memo proposing that the center be axed has not been released to the public, it is possible to imagine several reasons why the senior Army officers who prepared it might have targeted this new center, despite the fact that according to a March 2024 GAO report its work so far has been broadly successful. To begin with, the center is so new and small that some senior leaders may not be familiar enough with it to understand its added value. They may also anticipate that the center is likely to be perceived by the Trump White House, rightly or wrongly, as liberal-leaning fluff—similar to how the administration has portrayed the DEI initiatives it has pressed the military to eliminate. But senior Army officers should think twice about whether this proposed cut will actually yield significant savings or political capital relative to its operational and political benefits before they punt the matter to Congress.*